Whites a minority in 10 percent of U.S. counties

[Heracles 417]

Just like the American mob, which was made up of mostly white people. Crime can make you rich. But it doesn't mean that every white person was rich because some mob families were. The same applies, most minorities are dis proportionally poor. Some through crime or whatever, get out of being poor. That doesn't mean that everyone stopped being poor.

Actually that is an interesting point. Since so many know so much here, can you guys tell me how much an average drug dealer makes during a week?

[Dan J 277]

I am still waiting for the proof of this link between poverty, in america, since anything I say is a"wild tangents based on anecdotal, second hand information"..

Does it matter? When you believe what you believe as strongly as you do, facts, research, evidence to the contrary is not likely to change your opinion/belief.

[Heracles 417]

...it is absolutely related to poverty. The areas they are terrorizing, since gangs work on terms of "turf ownership" (ie. this is our turf, that is yours...), are poverty stricken and they are in gangs in the first place because they are on the lower end of the economic scale.

So what would you like everyone else to do to get them out of poverty, in order for them to not enter a gang?

More to the point - how would you?

Generalisations aside - I see plenty of criticism but no solutions being proposed. Are you prepared to play by the rules of your own game?

Number 6, how can I provide a solution on something I do not agree with as being the cause??

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Fair point. What's your "culture based" solution then?

[Heracles 417]

I am still waiting for the proof of this link between poverty, in america, since anything I say is a"wild tangents based on anecdotal, second hand information"..

Does it matter? When you believe what you believe as strongly as you do, facts, research, evidence to the contrary is not likely to change your opinion/belief.

What evidence, facts and research has anybody, with opposing views, provided here?? Zero. It all comes down to opinion. Which being in an immigration forum is clearly biased.

[Caladan 19]

Follow the link, tootles. The link has lots of research! You'll have to click on it. We can't do that for you.

[Dan J 277]

Just like the American mob, which was made up of mostly white people. Crime can make you rich. But it doesn't mean that every white person was rich because some mob families were. The same applies, most minorities are dis proportionally poor. Some through crime or whatever, get out of being poor. That doesn't mean that everyone stopped being poor.

Actually that is an interesting point. Since so many know so much here, can you guys tell me how much an average drug dealer makes during a week?

Drug dealers can make a lot of money, especially at the top, because its illegal, the profit margins are sky high. But, not everyone can be a drug dealer. You need people to be your customers. The more accurate question is what do their customers usually make?

I am still waiting for the proof of this link between poverty, in america, since anything I say is a"wild tangents based on anecdotal, second hand information"..

Does it matter? When you believe what you believe as strongly as you do, facts, research, evidence to the contrary is not likely to change your opinion/belief.

What evidence, facts and research has anybody, with opposing views, provided here?? Zero. It all comes down to opinion. Which being in an immigration forum is clearly biased.

Others have posted links to evidence, but as i said, does it matter? clearly not since you didn't want to read them.

[Heracles 417]

Assuming you're asking for a link between poverty and crime, in the U.S., this is pretty well established. Broken home, kid can't get an education, has no way out, turns to gangs or drugs or prostitution, gets caught, becomes a felon, can't raise the next generation, &c. If your hypothetical gangbanger is driving a Lexus he got it through drug money.

If you have university access you can start reading some of the articles here. It's a pretty well-respected correlation.

Nice use of google but is does not cut it. Why is it people like Oprah specifically stated that she would not build a school in the US because, in her opinion, kids did not value education? Why is it Bill Cosby also says that kids do not value education?

What is your solution to this poverty related crime then?

[thetreble 19]

Booyah- From where it stands in my eyes right now, I don't personally know what society can do to stop gang violence. I am not an economist or a social worker. It seems to rise and fall. Cities are taking action to keep guns off streets and better policing. NYC, as some one stated previously, has seen crime drop dramatically. When I'm in the city, I feel incredibly safe. NYC has a ton of boys and girls after school programs where kids can go. Every one needs to help really...the cities people and local/fed government.

If you are poor and can't go to college or even community college, you often turn to an out where you think you can make more dollars than min. wage at mcdonalds. Some kids work SUPER hard and get a ton of grants and scholarships, get themselves there, get educated and out-run the cycle of poverty. Those stories of success always make me happy.

Also, the United States has a HUGE problem with their education system. Bad areas often equal a lower standard of education and lack of great teachers. Education in Canada is extremely standardized. I heard a story last year where a girl, white, (just an example) finished at the top of her class in Mississippi. When she got into college, she was so far behind in what she needed to know, it was going to take her 5 to 6 years to finish college to catch up to the learning level she needed to be at. That's a problem, white or black concentrated neighbourhood.

As for Bill Cosby...a lot of what he says has been rebuttled. You are taking an opinion from a guy that tried to force sex out of an underage girl. You want to read a response to him? Try "Is Bill Cosby Right?" by Michael Eric Dyson. I heard him read at a harlem book fair. He was awesome.

Edited August 9, 2007 by thetreble

[Heracles 417]

Others have posted links to evidence, but as i said, does it matter? clearly not since you didn't want to read them.

Where? At post 194..

[SteveLaura 0]

[Heracles 417]

Here are some stats:

Black Americans are 5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans. Ratio being highest in the blue states, where the least live.

45,000,000+ Americans live in 'poverty'. Out of those roughly 8,750,000 are Black Americans living in poverty. Which basically means 80% of Americans living in poverty are not Black.

I do not see a clear correlation between poverty and crime as the rate of poverty amongst Black Americans is not 5 times the national average; when compared to being imprisoned.

Edited August 9, 2007 by Boo-Yah!

[Caladan 19]

Assuming you're asking for a link between poverty and crime, in the U.S., this is pretty well established. Broken home, kid can't get an education, has no way out, turns to gangs or drugs or prostitution, gets caught, becomes a felon, can't raise the next generation, &c. If your hypothetical gangbanger is driving a Lexus he got it through drug money.

If you have university access you can start reading some of the articles here. It's a pretty well-respected correlation.

Nice use of google but is does not cut it. Why is it people like Oprah specifically stated that she would not build a school in the US because, in her opinion, kids did not value education? Why is it Bill Cosby also says that kids do not value education?

What is your solution to this poverty related crime then?

All of those links are to peer-reviewed journals funded by major research universities. I used scholar.google.com to find them, yes, because if I used Yale's database archive access I wouldn't be able to give you a link.

I think you're right that some kids do not value education. But I don't think their choice not to value it happens in a vacuum. Kids pick up on their environment, and if what you see is your mother working her ### off for minimum wage and the dealer down the street able to buy cool shoes and clothes, and your school is full of cockroaches and barely has books, you're probably not going to value it. I'm not going to claim that every kid is prayerfully going to school and failing, but if your school sucks, and you see that legitimate work gets you a job at Walmart and illegal work gets you nicer stuff, you're not going to bother studying. Kids aren't dumb, and they learn from their environment very fast. I wouldn't value education either if I had grown up in a place where whether I did well in school or not never mattered to the outcome of my life.

Where I think Cosby is wrong is that he thinks that the kids do have a choice in a vacuum.

Anyhow, how I'd fix it, were I queen of the world: 1) Get the high schools up to a basic standard -- say, a graduate should be able to go to community college, minimum. 2) End the war on drugs. Prohibition didn't work the first time around and it created the mob. This time around it's created (or strengthened) the gangs. 3) More emphasis on vocational education. Not every kid is going to be able to go to college, and it's not right for every kid. Fifty years ago this didn't matter as much because we had a strong manufacturing base. It would be nice to get that back.

[thetreble 19]

Population DENSITY. I don't think you have gotten that yet.

Caladen, don't spend too much time posting. I don't think boo yah is really reading it.

Edited August 9, 2007 by thetreble

[Caladan 19]

Here are some stats:

Black Americans are 5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans. Ratio being highest in the blue states, where the least live.

45,000,000+ Americans live in 'poverty'. Out of those roughly 8,750,000 are Black Americans living in poverty. Which basically means 80% of Americans living in poverty are not Black.

I do not see a clear correlation between poverty and crime as the rate of poverty amongst Black Americans is not 5 times the national average; when compared to being imprisoned.

Oddly enough, there's a whole literature on how likely you are to be arrested and prosecuted if you're black rather than if you're white. Blacks are more likely to be arrested, too, and less likely to draw a sympathetic jury or a rich lawyer (unlike, say, Al Gore's kid.)

The other thing is urban poor vs. rural poor. More urban poor = more urban-type crime = more drugs = more arrests. For whatever reason, black people in poverty tend to live in cities and white people in poverty tend to live in more rural areas (i.e., meth labs.)